Bill and Doug's Alcan 5000

Dawson Creek to Jasper, and then Home

2008-03-02T10:06:00.001-08:00

We spent the night at the George Dawson Inn in Dawson Creek. Doug's face was really starting to feel itchy and he wanted to shave, so he had me preserve his mountain man looks for posterity.

The next day we headed east. We were definitely back in civilization: lots of cars, trucks and radio stations to be found. I had no idea that the oil industry was so big in Alberta. There were wide loads constantly moving up and down the highways there, every one with one-ton pickups as lead and trail cars.

We all stopped in Grand Cache for the start of the Alcan's last TSD section. There is a great visitor information center there.

After a tricky (12 speed changes, including a 4 mph one!) TSD, we started our final transit into Jasper National Park. The park is beautiful, and reminds me in many ways of Yellowstone.

At one point, a trucker was not satisfied with our 10 over the limit speed and passed four of us in a row!

We arrived at the Jasper Inn about 3 in the afternoon, and after some souvenir shopping, retired to the Inn's hot-tub, (hot!) and then the steam room, (even hotter!) After an impromptu champagne spray, courtesy of the Sirius Rally Team, we all headed to the awards banquet.

As a precautionary measure, the organizers had arranged a no-host, cash bar for our celebratory needs. Dinner was included with the entry fee, and was one of the nicer meals we had along the way, I especially dug the salmon!

Team D handed out some special awards to various teams, including one to Doug and I for pulling one of there comrades out of a snow bank. We are now the proud owners of a dash-to hula girl, and two "Team D" stickers.

After the banquet, we stayed up until midnight swapping .jpg and .avi files, which made the morning seem earlier than normal when it came. Doug had filled up the night before, so after planting some carrots and oranges on one of the Mitsu vehicles to aid them in crossing the border, we were on the road.

Doug drove us to Kamloops, and I took us across the border to Sumas, where we got (relatively,) cheap diesel. I drove us through Seattle, and thank god for HOV lanes. Doug took over south of Tacoma and brought us home.

750 miles, 13 hours, including 1 fuel and 2 food stops. I don't want to do that every day. But it got us home in time to read to our kids before bed!

Thank you all for your support and encouragement. I really appreciate it. It was nice to wake up in the morning to all of your nice comments!

I especially want to thank Kricket and Joy for letting us go, and Frank and Delphine for the mode of transport! We were probably the most comfortable competitors on the Alcan. Thank you Dad, Aunt Kelly and Uncle Bob, Papa Art and Clare, and Mom and Peter! Thank you Abby for the "I love you so much Daddy!" when I got home.

I'll leave you with a couple pictures, compliments of the Sirius Rally Team, that I really liked, but didn't post up earlier.

Some Subaru owner, who shall remain nameless (though we have him on video!) modified our "Subaru Recovery Vehicle" sticker.

Doug and I parked above the frozen MacKenzie

-Bill

Results

2008-02-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

We're on our way home now... About 150 miles north of Seattle.

We finished 2nd in our class, and 12th overall out of 24 entries.

Looking forward to being home!

Doug

Beers

2008-02-26T20:49:00.001-08:00

It may be a little while before updates. We enjoyed the hot tub and needed a beer to cool off. At the finish banquet now.

Doug

Finish

2008-02-26T15:51:00.001-08:00

We have reached the finish in Jasper!! It has been an incredible trip. More later.

Doug

Liard Hotsprings to Dawson Creek

2008-02-25T21:53:00.000-08:00

When I signed on for this adventure, I didn't think that I'd end up sleeping in a for-real log cabin. Overall, it wasn't so bad. The worst part was smacking my head on the loft beam a few times. I finished loading up the truck while Doug went to order us some food in the Lodge.

After a quick breakfast we got out on the road headed east: Destination, Ft. Nelson, 190 miles away. When we passed by Muncho Lake, it seemed very familiar to me, and it took me a few miles to figure out why: Dad and I got stopped there for some road construction for the better part of an hour in August of 2000.

While on the drive, some eagle-eyed, (or should I say wolf-eyed,) Alcan competitor spotted a wolf walking along the frozen river, some ways off. About five cars, ours included, pulled off to look. Doug had a pair of binoculars, which was nice! I've never seen a wolf in the wild before.

We arrived in Ft. Nelson about an hour and a half before our TSD, and were able to get diesel at the pump, and a root beer float at the A & W. Stevan and Kristin found an open wireless connection that allowed Doug to get a quick blog off, and allow us to get some Doo Wops updates off of Special Stage.

Our TSD went pretty well. We were a little rushed at the start, but only picked up 14 points on the whole leg.

From Ft. Nelson to Dawson Creek, traffic got heavier and heavier. Many, many wide-loads of oilfield equipment moving up and down the highway. Just east of Dawson Creek, we had our 2nd to last TSD of the event. We're starting to get this down, only 6 points over 4 controls, giving us 20 points for the day. I think we've fallen to 12th place over all, and hopefully we'll hang on to finish in the top half.

We drove the last 15 or so miles into town with a RCMP following us. We were obeying the speed limit, but it is always unnerving to have a cop follow you. We reached the start of the Alaska Highway, and Keltie, from the Dawson Creek Visitor's Center took our picture, and gave us congratulatory letter from the mayor and an Alaska Highway pin.

Tomorrow: The last TSD, and Jasper, AB.

P.S.

2008-02-25T11:52:00.000-08:00

Last night, we stayed in Liard River Lodge. When we walked in, all of the receipts for all Alcaners were on the desk. I noticed that they all cost $140 per night... except for ours which was $81. I thought something seemed funny- especially when the girl at the desk had to ask someone else where the "P.S. Cabin" was?? That's funny... everyone else was staying in this nice lodge, like with shower and bathrooms and stuff.

We learned later that P.S. may stand for "Picatosica Succumbo".... latin for "No Plumbing". Yeah, we were in some backwoods cabin with a wood stove and plywood floor. More later.

Can anyone else figure out what P.S. might have stood for?

Photo: I liked this bumper sticker.

Photo: Inside of the P.S. cabin.

Photo: Liard hot spring. Bill, two "Team Bubba" guys, and Jeff Zurschmeide

Dan's Internet

2008-02-25T11:49:00.000-08:00

24 Feb Blog - I wrote this last night on the way to Liard Hot Springs, but we never found internet. Now, I'm sitting next to some guy's house in Fort Nelson, BC to send this before the next TSD.

Day's summary
Today started with a TSD. The Long Lake TSD was actually a repeat from the last time we were in Whitehorse. We should have had it nailed, but something weird was going on either with our ODO or the stopwatch. We never did diagnose what it was. BIll would say "You're 8 second late", so I'd floor it for a few seconds to keep up. .2 miles later he'd say "You're 11 seconds early"... I'd stand on the brakes and .2 miles later, he'd tell me I was late again. My response each time "Impossible!!" No way were we getting that far off in such a short distance. So, something was goofy. We'll wait for the scores to see how badly we did. It was cold this morning, around -4F, so my theory is that our cheapy stopwatches weren't working very well due to the cold.

The Ice Race was also on the same course as last time on Schwatka lake. I ran the first two runs- the hope was that the ice would be in better shape for the first two runs and I could turn in a more competitive time. Bill also ran one run and then decided we'd rather head back to the hotel than make another run on the deteriorating (traction-wise) ice. It was still a blast! I took some video and caught two cars with "interesting" lines through the finish. See videos. We haven't seen any times for the ice race so we have no idea how we did.

Photo: Bill's feet on the ice course. Looks like it's cracking!

As I write this, we're transiting about 400 miles to Liard River Hot Springs, where we will stay for the night. We're hoping to arrive early enough to spend a little time in the actual hot springs. We're also hoping to have internet access. You'll be the first to know if we do.

Photo: Sign forest we past on the way. This place had thousands of signs!
Chicanery

Last night, BIll caught Stevan Arychuk redhanded as he defaced our "Subaru Recovery Vehicle" decal, making it look like "Subary Wannabe Vehicle". Ha! In response, both Arychuk's and the Team Sirius WRX found a string of Kokannee cans tied to their cars in the morning (though not before driving for a while with them attached!). Yes, we've degenerated to high school pranks. Don't worry. There's an 11pm reading of "War and Peace" later tonight after the math quiz bowl to brighten things up a bit. We've also been playing "Guess the element" over the radio for hours. Did you know that the symbol for Tungsten is "W"? Which seems like a good time to mention that Bill actually said "I sure would like a periodic table of the elements for my wall!". Really. I couldn't make something like that up. So, add it to your shopping list for next year.

Heading to Liard River Hot Springs

2008-02-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

The TSD and ice racing are over for the day and we're getting ready to transit to the next hotel, about 400 miles away.

It's 5 degrees F. The ice race was fun, but it was slipperier than last time. Still fun and we got some good photos and video to share later.

Photo: Bill's beard shows how cold it was this morning.

More later.

Doug

Transiting back to Whitehorse - Day 8!

2008-02-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

Today, we made the 530 mile transit from Eagle Plains to Whitehorse. This drive included about 250 miles on the Dempster "Highway" and another 250+ miles on Hwy 2. The Dempster is really just a gravel road just barely wide enough for two vehicles in most places. Right now, there's enough ice and snow to make it "exciting" as Bill likes to say. Hwy 2 is pretty much paved, but I use "paved" loosely- especially compared to I-5 or something. And it's still just two lanes.

We did the Dempster in 4-wheel drive and then switch to 2-wheel drive to save gas on Hwy 2. We noticed that using 4-wheel drive reduces gas mileage by 1-2 MPG.

In general, the drive was beautiful through the tundra, although there were also some long stretches of road that had been victim to recent forest fires, too. We did see our coldest temps yet on this transit- -13F!! But it warmed up to around 0F before we had to get out of the truck for anything.

In Whitehorse, we're staying in the same hotel - The Yukon Inn - that we stayed in a few days ago. When we arrived, Bill snapped a shot of this dogsled team truck. The sleds are on top and there are dogs in the kennels. Pretty cool!

In honor of seeing the dogs (and because I was thirsty), I drank this beer.

So, we've been having a lot of fun but now it's time for the serious stuff. This is a competition after all! There are three cars in our class, which is a class for SUV's with some advanced calculation equipment but no fancy real rally computer. In our case, we simply use a laptop to do our Time-Speed-Distance math. In our class, we are currently in second place. First place, Josh and Evans Keatley (in a Subaru Forester), have 125 points. We have 168 points, and the Alkemas in a Chevy pickup have 435 points. Remember, lower is better. So, we are in striking distance of 1st place in our class! The bad news? The Keatley's have years of experience in TSD rallies and are unlikely to make any major errors. We will do our best to overtake them, though! They may be the one team that we would not stop to help on stage! (Just kidding about that last part!).

Overall, we are in 11th place out of 24 entrants. We hope to break into the top 10. It will be difficult, though- There are some great competitors here.

The group running the Alcan is really fun loving! There has been some chicanery in the parking lot tonight. Maybe some photos will surface of this tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow, we start the day with a 8 mile TSD, and the some more Ice Racing. Whoo hoo! After the competitive stuff, we head to Liard River Hot Springs for the night. Liard is about 400 miles from Whitehorse and there are some Hot Springs that we plan to go enjoy.

So far, we have not seen one drop of precipitation. The temperature has only dropped below zero once (today), and roads and skies have been clear. Crazy. Definitely not what we were expecting. Tomorrow's forecast includes some snow. So we will see how that goes. Actually, we're looking forward to a little falling snow!

Highlighting (or lowlighting?) the warm weather, don't miss the Primitive blog page from yesterday: Click here

Hopefully, we will have internet tomorrow, but we're not sure yet.

Thanks for all of your comments and encouragement (even yours, Becker!)

Doug

ps for Becker: I haven't noticed any Ice Worms yet, but you would have gotten a real kick out of the three locals who visited with us last night. Crazy guys!! They claimed that they could fit 30 Caribou into their pickup truck. They asked if I knew you. You have some reputation up here as a Caribou lover!

Up to Tuktoyaktuk and back to Eagle Plains

2008-02-23T18:13:00.000-08:00

After our Thursday night video capturing/blogging geek-out, we started out Friday morning by leaving the hotel, and driving down to the boat ramp and onto the frozen MacKenzie, north to Tuktoyaktuk. The first 40 or so miles of the ice road north of Inuvik are very smooth and wide, in some places I'd estimate at least eight lanes wide.

With the sun coming up so late, you can see the moon quite well at 8 a.m.

Wide and smooth.

The second half of the ice road is narrower, bumpier, and can catch you out if you are careless or unlucky. At the mouth of the MacKenzie, the ice road turns east, onto the saltwater, and continues to Tuktoyaktuk. Stevan and Kristin we're about 5 miles ahead of us when they called back reporting a right rear flatted tire. Stevan had come around a corner, saw the pothole, (big!) and managed to avoid the worst of it, hitting only the rear wheel. That was enough though: The wheel hit edge of the ice hard enough to bend the rim, gashing open the sidewall of the tire.

We were on the scene within a few minutes, and rather than unstrap his roof spare, and dig out his jack, Stevan used ours, and I fished out the spare tire we were carrying for him. We were back on the road in about 10 minutes, this time with our Dodge in the lead, calling out the rough spots.

The Car 14 team of Perret/Hansen was not so lucky. In the same section their Impreza suffered damage to both front and rear struts on the right side, in addtion to holing one of their right side tires.

We arrived at the monument at the end of the road, and checked in with the time control. I walked around the town for a little bit, but it was cold enough that frost was forminig on my moustache.

We stopped by the general store before we headed back south for some hot chocolate. When I say "general store," I mean they sell everything: furniture, food, diapers, bras, flat screen tvs, etc. We saw the same phenomenon at the North Market in Inuvik, with the notable additions of Pizza Hut, KFC, and Polaris snowmachines all in the department store.

Weight limit on the ice road. That's amost 70,000 pounds.

Hot cocoa in hand, we headed back to Inuvik.

It was a good thing that we left when we did, as a hell of a fog had come in, and chased us over 45 miles of the 109 back to Inuvik.

We stopped to switch drivers at one point and noticed that the fog had left a 1/4 of ice on every leading edge of the truck.

About 40 miles outside of Inuvik, the weather was again beautiful and clear. We were able to pull up alongside Stevan and Kristin on the wide section and shoot some neat photos:

The Team D Saab entered a tighter right hander just a little too quickly and ended up in a snowbank. A local good samaritan gave them a tug out, and they were soon on their way.

After some quick souvenier shopping and some pizza, we loaded back up in the Dodge and headed South for Eagle Plains.

Leaving the Northwest Territories.

Doug had picked up sandwich fixings in Inuvik, so we were not able to sample the $25/plate buffet in the dining room. We did partake in a few Eagle Claws and rounds of pool in the bar. After retiring to our room with Team Sirius to polish off the last of our Kokanees, a few local fellows came in to hang out. As it turns out, they were hunters from Ft. MacPherson, on their way south of Engineer Creek to find some caribou. One of the hunters described the oldest of the three as having "caribou eyes," which I took as having the knack for finding them.

Next: Back to Whitehorse.

Arctic Birthday

2008-02-21T23:55:00.000-08:00

Feb 21st was my birthday.

My fellow Alcan-ers made it really memorable!!

This morning, I awoke to find the truck totally decorated with shaving cream, inflated rubber gloves, shaving cream, zip ties, straws, and toilet paper. Apparently, a crew of 10+ worked for over an hour late at night to give me a proper happy birthday. The truck was right in front of our room and neither Bill nor I heard a thing. Fun stuff! Be sure to check out Matt Tabor's documentation of the feat here: Tabor's Blog

At breakfast, a group of 20 or so sang happy birthday to me.

And then at dinner, Team Sirius -Jen, Gord, August, Josh and Evans along with Stevan and Kristin presented me with a couple of hand-made birthday cards that were signed by dozens (if not all) Alcan competitors.

Huge thank you to everyone for all of the nice birthday wishes (also from you blog commenters!!). You are all awesome!

Inuvik

2008-02-21T23:00:00.000-08:00

We rolled out of Dawson around 0800 and headed for "The Corner," where we filled up. One nice thing about being the only diesel on the event: not a lot of wating at the pumps.

After topping off, our caravan of four, (our truck, two WRXs and a Forester,) headed North toward Eagle Plains, 256 miles away. I hear they're changing the name of that gas station to "We've got you over a barrel gas."

The Dempster is a beautiful road, and we had great weather for our drive: Highs of 39, lows of 11. When out of the car, we only needed jackets when the wind was blowing. Apparently, it was -40 or so a week ago.

Here's a picture of our main competition, the Keatleys, and Olgivie Ridge.

Cars lined up at Eagle Plains, the halfway point between Dawson and Inuvik.

Some miles north of the Eagle Plains, we crossed the Arctic Circle and stopped for the photo moment.

Getting closer to Inuvik.

We're staying at the Capital Suites in Inuvik, and apart from being like an oven in the hallways, the hotel is really nice. I was able to clean all of our clothes in the hotel's laundry room. While I was doing laundry, I ran into a fellow Oregonian who is up in Inuvik filming the Ice Road Truckers show for the History Channel.

Tomorrow: Driving on the MacKenzie and the Beaufort Sea to Tuk! No web access tomorrow, but never fear, we'll be back up the day after next.

Snowballs for the officials

2008-02-21T22:47:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this may not have been our brightest idea, but on Tuesday, we ambushed some of the Alcan officials. Here's the video. At the end, you hear the officials over the radio say "That's 20 points for all of you"... meaning that they were going to penalize us some how. I think they really enjoyed it, though, and we haven't noticed any penalties.

Enjoy!

Doug

We're in Inuvik

2008-02-21T18:27:00.000-08:00

We've made it to Inuvik after a 500 mile drive from Dawson. The room/hotel here is really nice and modern- All suites. We're connected to Marinus and Renee Damm (although I don't think they know how lucky they are yet to have us).

We skipped lunch so now it's time to find something. We have some neat pictures from the drive through the tundra along the Dempster highway. More later.

Doug

Damned Vandals!

2008-02-21T06:29:00.001-08:00

This is what the truck looked like this morning.

Subaru Recovery Vehicle

2008-02-20T23:58:00.001-08:00

Some new vinyl was added to the car today. This will seem funny until we need to get towed out by someone. :)

11% Grade Photo

2008-02-20T23:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Ron Sorem for this great photo from Monday's "11% Grade TSD". This photo was taken right after Bill said something like "You're 20 seconds late" followed by "I see a control"...

We were moving pretty good up this hill to make up the time.

Day 4 TSD Hell, well, Heck anyway.

2008-02-20T22:42:00.000-08:00

I had a good breakfast of brown toast, eggs and sausage this morning at the Yukon Inn in Whitehorse. Class act that they are, the Keatleys picked up the tab for both Doug and I this morning. I think that was so when they thouroughly trounced us at both the days TSD and at the Ice Race, that we'd still have to be nice to them! Also, they are truly two great guys.

The entire rally was granted a late checkout from the Yukon Inn, which allowed the uber-competitive teams to leave all of their excess gear in the hotel so it wouldn't weigh them down for the ice race. In contrast, we pulled out our cooler, so it wouldn't slide back and forth.

The TSD today was a dead-turn around. Early on the first half, we missed a turn, and Doug had to scramble to get the car back on course. I estimated that we'd been off course for .2 miles, and had to add that to all of the subsequent time hacks in the excel sheet. Doug's spirited driving got us back on course, though our scores on the way end suffered from the odo being off to our time, giving us 42 points on the first half. After the turn around, and re-zeroing our odometer, we only picked up 5 points on the way out, including our first zero!!! Letting the wind out of our sails was car #26, Keatley/Keatly, who netted 5 zeros, and only picked up 5 points total on the remaining 3 controls!

After the TSD, we transited to the Ice Race, which Doug will post about. I will however, insert this gratuitous picture of yours truly going for the gold. Many thanks to Jeff Z. of Team Mitsubishi for taking some absolutely kick-ass photos of us at the Ice Race!!!!1

After leaving the Ice Race, we headed back to the hotel to pick up the rest of our gear and check out. We hit the car wash, (though you can hardly tell now!) We picked up some food to go and headed out on the Alcan Highway. Soon we turned onto the Klondike Highway, and headed for Dawson City.

We stopped at the Pelly River Bridge so Stevan and Kristin could refuel, but there was no premium available for their WRX, so we pressed on to Stewart Crossing. I was convinced we'd seen the last of premium until we got back to Whitehorse. I was wrong, and the gas station was damn proud of their premium gas: $5.70 a gallon. While they were fueling up, I noticed something familiar in the snow by the pumps...

Lots of Western Star, Sterlings and Freightliners running around up here. I've even run across a couple Trimac Trans trucks. Didn't get a chance to see if they had a 478 module or not.

Tomorrow, from South to North on the Dempster Highway: Eagle Plains (mile 256,) The Arctic Circle (mile 280,) and Inuvik (mile 486,) the largest Canadian town above the Arctic Circle at 3500. No TSDs or Ice Races, just an easy 500 miles...

-Bill

Ice Racing!

2008-02-20T22:40:00.000-08:00

We finally made it to our first Ice Race today. This was held on Lake Schwatka in Whitehorse. This lake is used as a float plane base in the summer and a ski-plane base in the winter. A course was carved into 18" of snow using plows down to bare ice. Looking down into the ice was kind of eerie- You could see that it was VERY thick (48"?), but you could also see cracks going all over the place. Still, the lake was obviously very frozen and the ice very strong. There were no concerns at all of breaking through the ice.

Each driver is allowed to drive the course up to two times. So Bill and I each got to drive the course twice. The first runs are the most competitive as the ice becomes very polished and much more slippery with more runs.

Bill took the first run and turned in a very good 1:32.8. Doug's run came next and was a 1:32.0. Bill then fired off a 1:37.7, and Doug's second run was a 1:34.0.

The fastest run put down by Gord Ryall was a 1:19.0 in a WRX. Paul Eklund was next with a 1:19.1 in his Forester.

We felt really good about our scores on the ice! More importantly, we entertained the crowd and we DID NOT finish last.

Most cars could go a little off course and would either bounce off the snow banks or get stuck. The truck made short order of the meager 18" of snow and literally blew right through it. This made for some incredible visuals.

Photos courtesy of Jeff Zurschmeide. Thanks, Jeff!

Photo: Doug... just a little off course

Photo: Bill leaving a con-trail.

Video! This is video of Doug's second run on the ice course.

Video! This is in-car of Bill's second run on the ice course. Make sure you watch it to the end!!! :)

Dawson City

2008-02-20T20:09:00.000-08:00

We've made it to Dawson City. Here's a picture of our fridge with proper Canadian beer in it.

We're going to dinner. More later. Today was a fun day!

Doug

Hankook picks up BAD

2008-02-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

After seeing our performance at the ice racing today, Hankook has decided to pick up Bill and Doug.

The package includes:
A house in the Hamptons
Full scholarships to Harvard for Michael and Abby
Two Jaguars rollin' on double dubs
Two bottles of Wild Turkey
Maybe some tires, if we're lucky.

Fact is, we outperformed all other 7000 pound vehicles while managing to avoid falling through the 48" ice in Whitehorse. The team also demonstrated proficiency in storing carrots.

Reminders of my trip up here with my Pop.

2008-02-20T19:49:00.000-08:00

The Cassiar highway brought back some memories for me of the trip Dad and I took to Alaska. Granted, we did it at a different time of year! We stopped for food and diesel in Dease Lake, headed north to Whitehorse. It is the same restaurant (with at least one change of ownership,) that Dad and I ate at in Septembeer, 2000 while headed south.

My memory is coming back to me more now though. At the Cassiar/Alcan intersection, I asked Stevan is he was good on gas to Teslin, 140 miles away, and he said yes. As we passed my one, then two, then more gas stations closed for the season, I started to get a little worried. I had told Doug that we'd be crossing over a looong perforated steel bridge, and there would be gas immediately on the right.

I was happy that I'd remembered correctly: Stevan's gas light came on 20 miles outside of Teslin!

I'm writing this from the road. I know the RAM Mount would come in handy, but I really had no idea! This is a very useful item, definitely in the top ten most useful things we've brought along. I'll have to make a list of those!

The Beastie Boy's Paul's Boutique is on loud, and we're cruising at 64 mph up the Klondike Highway headed to Dawson City. The weather here has been nice recently: the road is mostly clear pavement, with sections of ice/snow from time to time. It is a lot better than the Cassiar was.

One of the two sweep Dodges, and a co-member of the informal Team Cummins had his front diff take a crap on him yesterday. Reports vary: pinion bearing went out, diff lost fluid, etc. The only thing we know for sure is that the problem was front end, he dropped the front drive shaft, and is driving back to Seattle in rear-wheel drive.

We'll give you all a report on the day events later tonight, including the first of the Alcan Rally Ice Races!!!

Moose!

2008-02-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

No, we didn't see any, but Team Mitsubishi did. Check out Jeff Zurschmeide's blog here:

Moose!

We're not looking forward to seeing moose.. at least not with the "Ram Mounting Systems" decals all over the truck. But what am I thinking? Moose can't read... they're dumb! If we run into a Grizzly, however, we should be worried.

Doug

Today's Top Three

2008-02-20T06:46:00.000-08:00

Top Three Reasons that Doug Showered Today:

1. Yesterday, Bill said "My new name for you shall be Stinky".
2. I woke up with enough time to do it.
3. We had hot water.

On a related note... Yesterday morning Bill was commenting about how good his shower in New Hazelton was: "That was an awesome shower! It was one of those shower heads that doesn't limit the flow at all".

Simultaneously, screams were heard throughout the hotel as other Alcaners tried to shower but got no hot water. We asked at least 5 others but none had any hot water. Bill used it all. He didn't brag to them about it, which I thought was smart.

We estimated that the hotel had one 40 gallon (er 160 liter) hot water heater tank for the 30 rooms.

Doug

Long day, fun day!

2008-02-19T23:20:00.001-08:00

Today started early from New Hazelton. We were on the road from 6:40am- for me, that was without a shower and without breakfast. I had one of Bill's yummy oranges and some of Bill's jerky in the car. I'm lucky that Bill's family set him up with some good food!

We drove around 2 hours, where we hooked up with the Team Sirius cars near Medzian junction. We then took the optional 16 mile sidetrip to see the Bear Glacier. There was a beautiful view of the glacier over a snow covered lake. Although we started out the morning ahead of most of the competitors, this sidetrip put us near the back of the pack. We still had plenty of time, and the organizers allowed us (by plan) to start the TSD section either on time, or 30 minutes late.

Photo: Following Team Sirius WRX to Bear Glacier

Photo: Doug and Bill at Bear Glacier

We stopped at Mama Z's restaurant in Dease Lake before starting the 10 mile TSD section. While at Mama Z's, we met a typically friendly black labrador. Being in Dease Lake started to bring back good memories for Bill of his year 2000 trip up this way on his motorcycle, with his Dad.
Photo: Friendly Doggy.

We scored 15 points on the TSD over three controls. I think we should have done better, but I'll blame Bill. Ok, not really. I'll blame my spreadsheet, or my driving too. Heck... 15 points is pretty good, so I guess I'll shut up now.

Right after the TSD, we came upon the Team Sirius cars at the side of the road. They were waiting for us and the Arychuk's behind us so that we could transit together. After a short snowball fight, where I successfully avoided a well thrown snowball by jumping waist deep into a snow bank (like a complete idiot), we came up with a fun plan: Wait for the scoring officials to come along and ambush them with snowballs. I'd like it to be clear (to the officials who regularly read our blog), that this plan came from Car 17's Jennifer. In fact, Bill and I only eventually succombed to peer pressure and threw a few snowballs so that it looked good on video. Oh yeah- There's video of the fun ambush. Maybe that will get posted tomorrow because it's not on my camera. Hey, maybe THAT's why we "scored" 15 points on the TSD. :)

A little later on the transit, Bill and I both noticed movement on the road about .5 miles ahead. We initially thought it was people, then dogs, then maybe... Caribou!!! Bill snapped a picture just as they scrambled into the snow on the side of the road. Very cool siting. Bill wanted me to write "Doug whacked the little one with the truck and now we're eating Caribou. No damage to the truck." Ok, but that didn't happen, so I'm not going to write that.
Photo: Caribou! (We think)

Bill and I lead the parade for a while. If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes!

A bit later on the transit (hey, this was a LONG transit!), we reached a place called "Bell 2". This very cool place is a base for Helicopter skiiers. There are some beautiful mountains and if I was a skiier, this would be the place that I'd want to be dropped from a helicopter. Of course, with my current skill level, you might as well drop me from the helicopter on one of those round plastic sledding discs buttered up with Pam cooking spray. Either way, I'm tumbling down the hill in an ugly way. But, I digress. Fun thing about Bell 2 was this: They were supposed to have gas. Most of the cars on the Alcan carry around 16 gallon gas tanks. With all the gear folks are carrying and roof racks, gas mileage suffers. But, the gas pumps at Bell 2 were frozen. So, there was a LOT of trepidation amongst our competitors about running out of gas. Most emptied their spare gas into the tank and continued from there.

Overall, the roads today were in good shape. A good snow pack covering was there for most of the day. Toward the evening it warmed up a bit and the roads were nearly clear. We kept the truck in 2WD all day and only had a small amount of minor sliding in the snowpack.
Photo: Typical transit road today.

This seems like a good place to note that we filled our truck just once in 760 miles. This meant that we had more time to use the toilet and giggle at everyone else filling up in the cold. For those interested, we averaged 16.4 MPG today, which is great- We budgeted for an average of 12 MPG overall.

We averaged 52.2 MPH total and 60 MPH moving average. Bill said that I'm not allowed to publish our maximum speed.

Tomorrow looks to be really fun. We start with a 8 mile TSD, and then go to our first ice slalom. We're both really looking forward to the ice slalom. This should be a great photo/video opportunity. It will be tough to be competitive in the truck, but we hope to surprise a few people!